


Fate

by GoddessofBirth



Series: Spiral-verse [5]
Category: Chronicles of Riddick Series, Firefly, Serenity (2005)
Genre: Adventure, Backstory, Bonding, Canon Compliant, Canon Typical Violence, Crossover, Every story has a start, F/M, First Meetings, Friendship, Future Fic, Gen, Other, Past Child Abuse, Past Sexual Assault, Pre-Jiverick, Pre-Relationship, Romance, Smut, every story has a tragedy, every story needs a hero, mostly - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-05-19
Updated: 2013-07-27
Packaged: 2017-11-05 14:59:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/407774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoddessofBirth/pseuds/GoddessofBirth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Every love story has a beginning, and every love story has an end.  No one can escape their destiny.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Contact

**Author's Note:**

> The first story in the spiral!verse Origin Trilogy, where bonds are formed and friendships are tested and pigeons come home to roost. Takes place around three years after _Serenity_. Canon for Riddick is taken strictly from the three movies and not from video games or wikis, and the history of the Necromongers and Riddick are my own invention. Obviously this will be AU from the upcoming movie.

Riddick was in his quarters on the _Inferno_. They were opulent, fit for a king - or a Lord Marshall. The bed was rich and soft, covered with a thick, blood red comforter, and fabric paneling disguised the metal walling of a ship at space. Arranged at varying degrees around the room were pillars displaying statues and artwork; each was a portrait in suffering, each was a picture of pain.




He despised the entire thing.

 

He sat on the floor, at the foot of the bedroll he’d slept in for the last year, staring absentmindedly out the glass wall in front of him as he tapped the stylus against the handheld vid viewer. Over the journey, the stars had changed: different patterns, different compositions, but he’d never been interested in the sky other than a means of escape, and so the panorama before him meant just as little to him as the scenery in the ship.

 

He squeezed the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger, rubbing slightly. He’d been staring at the viewer for hours now, scrolling through the massive amounts of information the previous Lord Marshall had collected and collated. It was the same task he had engaged in almost every day for the entire journey, beginning as soon as they’d made the first leap beyond the known galaxies, as soon as they’d had to return to more normal speeds in order to begin their search, planet by planet, solar system by solar system.

 

The sheer amount of documentation on Furya was overwhelming. Oh, he’d known his origins before Aereon had made her mumbo jumbo, hoodoo proclamation, had heard the nuns whispering the words behind their hands in the orphanage, rags tied around his eyes to keep the burning light out. Heard it screamed at him as the priest had tried to flog the devil from him, all the while smelling of stink and perversity and far too much arousal for a man beating a child. But that was all it had been to him. A word, so many meaningless syllables in the face of survival.

 

To the previous Lord Marshall, though, it had been everything. In his desperate bid to outrun fate, he’d collected libraries worth of information, hundreds of data disks filled with everything he could find on Riddick’s people, from the trivial and mundane (A Furyan State Dinner required four forks on the place setting) to the legends and myths (Furyans believed they were descended from one of the four gods of Hell) to the Scientific (the fact that Riddick’s eyes were the result of a recessive gene - left over from the days before the Furyan’s had conquered the surface - an oddity that showed in 1 of every 100,000 Furyans born).

 

All that effort, all that death - and in the end, all for nothing. All the genocide and knowledge in the universe hadn’t been able to stand between him and a blade through the brain, hilt held by a Furyan.

 

After the shock had worn off, Riddick’s initial impulse had been to run, to push himself off that throne and abandon the Furyans to Vaako and the Universe to its fate. He had no interest in saving worlds, no interest in leading men; he’d only come back for Kyra.

 

For Kyra, for Jack. For the girl who had become a woman when he wasn’t looking, for the girl he had apparently destroyed just be trying to do the right thing for one goddamn time in his life.

 

He wondered if the nuns had been right, if he _was_ destined to ruin everything he touched.

 

He dropped the viewer to the floor and threw himself down on his back, starring at the images of Necromonger carnage painted on the ceiling above him. He thought he would have bedded Kyra eventually. It had been some time since he’d taken a woman, and she was the closest he’d come to caring for someone in years.

 

But Fate had stepped in, the Bitch that wore three faces, and instead she was sitting with the cargo, in a hermetically sealed coffin, looking like she’d only died yesterday instead of over a year in the past. And truthfully, what he’d felt for her had been nothing like the Furyan Hunger, so in the end he probably would have disappointed her again.

 

Sitting there, in that chair, the Necromongers kneeling at his feet like so much war fodder, his every instinct had screamed at him to get out, to move, to slice a few throats as he went out the door. But actually holding the future of star systems in his hand was a different thing than just contemplating it, and in the end he’d been unable to tip his palm, let it come crashing down and shatter on the tile.

 

He wondered when that had started, when he’d stopped being unable to let his choices slip off his shoulders as he made tracks to the door. Probably the second he’d killed Johns to prevent him from using Jack as bait, the moment he let Carolyn keep him from abandoning them all to their fate.

 

Carolyn. Another women to die for him.

 

He didn’t particularly care about women dying; he’d killed more than his fair share. The familiar, angry bile rose in his throat at the thought of Beamer and he pushed it down out of reflex. He didn’t even mind people dying so that he could live. But someone _choosing_ to die for him? It was an alien concept; it confused him in ways he didn’t like.

 

The intercom crackled to life. ‘ _Lord Marshall_ ,’ the disembodied voice was tentative. ‘ _We’ve found another possibility_.’

 

He snarled, angry at the interruption, and he could almost feel the air freeze. ‘You know the routine. Scan it, analyze it, report. Don’t bother me for _possibilities_.’

 

For two months he’d worked; ordered troop withdrawals from occupied territories, ended the practice of forced conversions. The commands had sent shock waves through the Necromonger population - all except for the priests, the small sect that had ‘anointed’ him, using some kind of ancient ritual and rite that had made his skin crawl and the animal want to lash out. They had only exchanged sideways glances and quiet nods before instructing the people to obey.

 

And once he had survived half a dozen assassination attempts, and put down a dozen insurrections from his under Lords, they had. Surprisingly, the only under Lord who _hadn’t_ challenged him had been Vaako. Instead, he had been the first to offer him his loyalty, the first to offer his life.

 

But Vaako was a good enough sort, once he got a handle on his bitch bride. Riddick hadn’t been lying when he said she smelled beautiful, but she also smelled treacherous, deceitful and murderous. None of those things particularly bothered him; it was the scent of naked ambition that roiled his stomach, made him turn away from the blatant invitation in those eyes, fiery and defiant, scheming still, even with that thick band of iron around her neck. Her furious screams had filled the halls of Crematoria the day Vaako had soldered it on. Like he said: a good man.

 

So, his loyalty Riddick had taken. His life he had not. He could recognize an asset when he saw one, and for those first few weeks, Vaako had stood back, watched him, reported to him, advised him. And by the end of the first month, his loyalty had been real. Riddick trusted him at his back as much as he trusted any man; which meant he trusted him with the People, if not with his life. 

 

Riddick trusted no man with that.

 

The withdrawal from occupied territories had predictably created a power vacuum, and wars had sprung up across the galaxies as opposing parties had rushed to fill it. But at least they were honest wars, fought with honest weapons. Riddick would let the dogs divide the scraps.

 

Even with the cessation of the previous Lord Marshall’s policies of violent expansion, the Necromongers were still the most powerful force in the system, and the worlds were divided on their new leader. Some feared him. Some loved him. 

 

Some saw him as the same devil in another guise, and they planned to give the devil his due.

 

The orphanage he’d spent his childhood in had been burned to the ground within the first week, all the occupants still inside. Imam’s widow and child had been attacked as they’d gone to buy food and now the Necromonger nurseries had one more parentless child to raise.

 

It had only been luck that had kept Kyra’s first burial place from being upended, and only guards had protected her second and third. In the end he had been forced to concede she’d never be safe on these worlds, where she would always be connected and blamed for him, and he’d had her coffin returned, loaded her into this ship and set out to find her a final home, a place where she’d be protected in death as she had never been in life.

 

He’d left Vaako to manage the natives, taken the man’s promise of fealty or death, and, turning his back, walked into the ship.

 

Aereon had stood and looked coolly down her nose as scores of Necromonger troops had saluted in ceremony. ‘Running won’t save you, you know. No man escapes his fate.’

 

He’d turned his lip up in a wordless snarl before sealing the hatch behind him. He made his own destiny. 

 

It’d been a year since they’d dropped out of AltDem, into the uncharted territories; a year of a needle in a haystack search for habitable planets to make Kyra’s home. They’d found dozens, but none had been quite right. There had always been something off, something that had set his teeth on edge. He didn’t know what it was, but he followed the drive to continue looking, the drive to push further. He would know the place when he saw it.

 

‘ _Apologies, Lord Marshall_ ,’ the voice broke into his concentration again, not heeding his unsubtle dismissal. ‘ _But there’s something…different here._ ’

 

‘ _What?’_ he roared out.

 

‘ _There appear to be -_ ’ the voice stuttered out momentarily before continuing, ‘ _cities_.’

 

Riddick was out the door and heading to the bridge in seconds. They were far, far out of the the known systems. There should be nothing here; at least nothing of the human variety.

 

The Necromongers stepped out of his way as he approached the viewscreen. There was a medium sized planet filling it, and the Navigator leaned over and punched a button sequence, causing several areas of the planet to expand and light up.

 

‘These are places indicative of manmade structures. And not small ones; these are giant cities. Everything points to an advanced civilization. Perhaps we’ve found the AmeriChin expedition?’ Riddick ignored the speculation. There were more important concerns than Earth's mythical lost delegation.

 

‘Then why haven’t we been stopped? We should have at least been hailed.’ His hackles were rising; no planet would let a ship of this size approach unchallenged, even one as minimally armed as they were.

 

‘That is the other reason we disturbed you, my Lord.’ The captain of the vessel, a man who had, before his Conversion, led the Armada of a small world, folded his arms in front of his body. ‘Other than vegetation, there doesn’t appear to be any life forms at all. Any. It’s like it has been abandoned by the living.’

 

The implications of that worked its way down Riddick’s spine and his adrenalin spiked. He had a very, very bad feeling, and the last time he’d ignored his gut, Johns had collared him. He’d just opened his mouth to tell the Captain to get them the hell out of there when there was a loud boom, and the entire ship shuddered. It had the unmistakable feel of being fired on.

 

‘What the fuck?’ None of the proximity sensors had so much as dinged and he shoved the pilot out of the way in order to flip the viewscreen to the outside visuals. The screen split into sixteen different squares and Riddick hissed.

 

‘How the goddamn hell did this happen?’ Every square was filled with one or more ships. They were surrounded.

 

One of the ships glowed red and spit fire, and another tremor rocked the bridge. The lights dimmed and went red. Necromongers jumped into battle mode, manned stations. Riddick grabbed the back of a chair to steady himself as the Navigator punched buttons and babbled. If the situation weren’t so serious, he would have appreciated the fact that there was something that could disturb the emotionless state of his crew.

 

‘We should have detected them miles out. They can’t have gotten this close! I don’t…how…They must be powered by something other than hydrogen, something not programmed into the system!’ The under Captain had been squinting at the screen, and then pointed to a trail of vapor off one of the ships. ‘Underverse! They’re using a radiated core. It’s like looking at an antiquated history chip.’

 

Riddick had tuned the buzzing conversation out. He was less interested in what was coming _off_ the ships than what was _on_ the ships themselves. Every one of them looked ancient, beaten; like they had been cobbled together from scraps cannibalized from other vessels. There were odd and out of place lumps and protrusions intermingled with splashes of red paint. He zoomed in on a ship and realized all at once what was strapped on those hulls. That red wasn’t from any paint.

 

‘Get us out of here NOW!’ he roared. Of course it was too late. They weren’t equipped for this kind of fight; they were an exploratory ship, not a war vessel. Within minutes their defenses were gone. Minutes after that, an iron harpoon went screeching through the engine, and they lost right side control.

 

The _Inferno_ listed, creaked, and then began to fall.

 

* * * * * * * * * 

 

There was chaos; afterward, Riddick would remember that. Flickers of light, loss of power, red glows from emergency runners. Screams and the smell of fear. Turned out Necromongers could feel pain after all. Running, strapping in; at some point in the seconds before the crash, Riddick found himself at the co-pilots chair, pulling up hard on the rudders.

 

Atmosphere…fire…earth approaching too quickly…impact.

 

One heartbeat…two heartbeats…

 

With a gasp he roared back into consciousness. The air was too silent around him, like a canon had exploded beside his ears. He unstrapped himself and pushed cautiously to his feet, heard the small sounds of others doing the same. He stumbled his way out of the cockpit and into the topsy turvy wreck of the ship, fumbling toward the cargo bay.

 

There was the sudden noise of metal screeching and a portion of the ceiling ripped away. A man - or what had once been a man - dropped down in front of him, face studded and torn, grinning fiercely as he licked blood stained lips and hefted an ax. A dozen more like him followed behind, and somewhere to the back of the ship, Riddick heard the screaming begin.

 

He ducked to avoid the swing of the blade before pulling his shiv and taking off at a run. He had to get to Kyra before they did.

 


	2. Seeing

 

The ship was dark and silent around River as she ran the scheduled checks of their systems and trajectory. If they encountered nothing unexpected, they should arrive on Boros in four days. She preferred this: performing the necessary adjustments brought about by space travel during the dead of the night cycle, when she could _think_. When everyone on _Serenity_ had retreated to dreams, where their thoughts were just gentle buzzes that comforted rather than overwhelmed. Of course it didn’t always work like that; sometimes a dream came so hard and fast that her mind almost folded in on itself in the effort not to get dragged along with the dreamer, but in the two years since Miranda, she had regained much of herself that she had lost. Fits were few and far between these days - she even thought she could have survived without medications, but she had yet to convince Simon of that fact.

A loud snore split the air. Speaking of dreamers…

Jayne lay stretched out in the co pilot’s chair, his feet propped up on a relatively safe portion of the console, his head thrown back, mouth wide open in sleep. Technically, he was supposed to be on night watch, but they had worked it out between themselves that when she was performing checks he would catch a few minutes rest. Unlike River, he could go to sleep in an instant, no matter the time or place.

She looked sideways at the nudie mag resting on his thighs, open and face down. Jayne’s hands were interlaced on his stomach, a good seven inches from the publication. Another noisy snore emitted from the large man. Keeping a steady eye on his face, she inched a hand carefully and quietly toward the magazine. A foot away, he snorted and shifted and she froze, but he quickly settled and returned to sawing logs. Five inches…three inches…she was mere millimeters now.

_Smack_! Before her fingers actually made contact, Jayne’s hand slammed down, trapping her hand between his and the cover. His eyes still closed, he spoke.

‘Uh-uh, Crazy. Yer brother and the cap’n would have my balls I let you take a peek at the ladies.’

She huffed and dropped back into her seat, folding her arms petulantly. Jayne was the one person on the ship she couldn’t seem to sneak up on, no matter how quiet she was. Stupid man. ‘You are inordinately obsessed with the state of your testicles.’

He just raised an eyebrow. ‘Unlike some on this ship, I actually use mine on a regular basis.’

River tried a different tact. ‘The girl is an adult; can look at whatever she wants.’

‘Maybe so, but ‘til you convince the Doc and yer _captain daddy_ -’ he snickered the name out, ‘ - of that little fact, you gotta find yer own porn, _dong ma_? You know the shit-fit they had when they found out I took ya to that show, ‘stead of gettin’ supplies.’

‘Boobs, both of them. The women were not even unclothed.’

‘Yeah, well, be as that may, it still got me bitched at fer two solid hours. I ain’t got the patience ta sit through that again without hittin’ nobody. Don’t like you _that_ much.’ He looked at her curiously. ‘Why you wanna look anyhow? Pretty sure you don’t swing that way.’

She said loftily, ‘The human form is beautiful. Has been studied for ages.’ His expression turned skeptical and he made a rude noise; she relented and collapsed back into giggles. ‘The girl is curious to understand why this preoccupies so much of the male psyche. Detailed observation is needed.’

‘Men ain’t psychic, Crazy; we jus’ like the pink bits.’

She twisted her mouth to keep from snickering at his misunderstanding and repressed the urge to correct him as he continued. ‘An’ I don’t think yer tryin’ to figure nothin’ out.’ He reached over and tapped a finger in the middle of her forehead. ‘I think you just got a dirty mind.’ 

She grinned and then sighed in a faux show of innocent resignation. ‘It was inevitable Jayne would rub off eventu -’

Her words cut of abruptly as her mind snapped and shattered.

Reality expanded and contracted; bent and realigned. 

When she came back into herself, her fingers were dancing across the console and Jayne was staring at her with a consternated expression.

‘What the hell ya doin’, Moony?’ he asked warily.

She muttered the words out, aware they would make even less sense to him than to her. But it didn’t mean they weren’t _true._ ‘The Hive has entered the game. Must hurry, hurry - quick - before the ants consume the king.’ She could feel them, buzzing, buzzing in her brain; barely individuals, although the king was trying to break them free. She didn’t know what she was saying, she didn’t know what it meant. She just knew she had to MOVE.

‘Sonuvabitch!’ Jayne vaulted to his feet. ‘Gonna get yer brother.’

Without looking, River reached a hand out and rapidly punched in a sequence of keys. The action caused Jayne to pause in stride. ‘River…’ his voice was cautious. ‘Why’d you lock the bunks?’

‘The Captain would attempt to stop her. Simon would drug her. The rest would distract her. She does not have time for persuasion.’

‘An’ what makes ya think I’ll just sit back and let ya fly us into god knows where?’

In less than a second she had her gun out of her thigh holster and pointed at his head.

‘ _Ta shi suoyou diyu de biaozi de ma_! What the _fuck_ do you think yer playin’ at?’

When she peeked at him from the corner of her eye, she was pleased to note that he only looked furious, not afraid. He was confident she wouldn’t really shoot him, although he was not so stupid as to not keep a careful eye on the firearm.

‘Jayne,’ she wheedled, ‘need your cooperation. Need Vera…need the grenades. Will need you to fetch her blades as well.’

He narrowed his eyes at her and sucked angrily at his teeth. ‘I ain’t doin’ nothing until you put Lucy away. You know better’n that shit.’

She sighed and placed the gun on the console in front of her. ‘Apologies. Required your full attention.’ Her hands continued to move as she spoke, realigning the ship with the new coordinates.’

‘Well, you got it, an’ yer lucky you ain’t got my boot up yer backside as well, _feng le_. Next time I won’t be so nice. You ain’t crazy enough to get a pass no more.’ He leaned against the cockpit lockers.

‘Now, you wanna tell me exactly why we need to be weaponin’ up? ‘Specially with Vera?’ Vera wasn’t a casual use weapon and she very rarely got asked to the party.

She didn’t answer him directly, trying and failing to follow the trajectory of the new threads running through their reality. The pattern being spun was unlike anything she’d ever seen; the thread slipping through her fingers wasn’t quite… _human_.

‘Won’t be nearly as hard as last time. The Cleansing has taken a hard toll on their numbers, and they will be distracted by the current carrion. A good pilot can get in without being noticed at all.’

She turned a beseeching gaze on him as she saw his eyes widen in horror as he put her words together. ‘Jayne, we MUST!’ It was the only thing she knew for sure.

‘Oh, hell no, Moony. Tell me you ain’t doin’ what it sounds like yer doin’. We already tried suicide once and I gotta tell ya I ain’t a real big fan. Tell me I’m wrong here, Crazy.’ He ground the words out, looking like he would bolt at any minute. She knew he wouldn’t though; he was steadier than they gave him credit for.

She hit a final button and let her hands drop to her lap as a familiar picture filled the view screen. Jayne sucked in a breath when he saw the confirmation of his suspicions. River simply whispered one word.

‘Miranda.’

* * * * * * * * * *

Malcolm Reynolds came awake abruptly as his body hit the floor. _What in seven hells -_? Before he could explore that thought further, the ship listed hard to the left and he rolled, crashing into the wall.

His ship was listing. Why was his ship listing? They should be sailing smooth, deep in the black. As _Serenity_ rolled and shook around him, he crawled to the intercom and hit the button for the bridge.

‘’Tross?’ He was proud of how calm his voice sounded; he’d been working on that. ‘Why exactly did I get woken from my beauty sleep with my face meetin’ the floor? More important: Why is my boat pitchin’ round like a top in the rapids? If I didn’t know better, I’d think we were performin’ diversionary tactics while hittin’ atmo. But I must be imaginin’ things, cause I know you didn’t somehow take it into your head to disobey orders. Right, little one?’

The speaker cracked and hissed, but the answering voice was most definitely not River. ‘Ah…Cap’n?’ Jayne’s voice did not do anything to calm Mal’s rapidly rising anger. ‘Crazy ain’t available at the moment.’

‘And why would that be, Jayne?’ he gritted out carefully. He wouldn’t yell. He. Would not. Yell.

‘Um…’ there was a moment’s silence before Jayne replied all in one rush. ‘ ‘Causeshesbusydodgingreavers.’

‘Jayne,’ Mal began quietly, ‘why is my ship in the _middle of reavers!_ ’ By the end of the sentence his voice was a roar and he was on his feet.

‘Well,’ Jayne’s voice was casually nonchalant. ‘They do tend ta like hangin’ out close ta home.’

Mal blinked as the ship executed a hard right and he heard the sound of the canon firing. He had never been so glad they’d finally decided to install a defense system. ‘Perhaps I misunderstood you, Jayne. I’m almost thinkin’ you’re sayin’ we’re headed to Miranda. Which can’t be, as we’re on route to Boros. For a job.’

‘Um…might wanna hold onta something, Mal.’ He barely had time to grip a ladder rung when _Serenity_ executed a belly roll and he was pummeled with a shower of books. As soon as things had settled, he grabbed his gun and vaulted up the ladder, but when he attempted to open his door, there was no response.

He tried again. The door remained stubbornly closed, but he could hear the sound of other fists pounding on similarly locked doors.

‘River Tam!’ he bellowed. ‘You open this door right this minute!’

Her voice came floating over the airways, ratcheting his already high blood pressure to dangerous levels. ‘Crew should arm themselves. We’re expecting company.’

* * * * * * * * * *

 

 

 


	3. Ties

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Riddick's POV of this chapter can be found in "Doppleganger."

 

Jayne held tightly to an overhead pipe as _Serenity_ skidded and slid to a halt on the eerily calm surface of Miranda. He had been suspicious when they had only encountered two reaver ships in orbit – even with The Cleansing there should have been more – but now he saw the reason and a long line of curses spewed from his mouth.

 

Two hundred yards in front of them was a downed ship, at least three times the size of _Serenity_ and like nothing he had ever seen. She was surrounded on all sides by Reavers, and they crawled like ants over her surface, in and out of her sides. If he listened hard, he was sure he could hear screams. 

 

River's analogy was suddenly making sense.

 

'Gorramit, Moony! You drug us here on some kinda rescue mission? For people we don't even know? That's _feng le_ , even for you.'

 

He gripped Vera's stock, taking comfort in her heavy weight under his hand, as well as the feel of the four other guns strapped across his body, and the knives in his belt and boot. He had a bandoleer of ammunition slung over his chest and another one crisscrossing it, holding the grenades.

 

River acted like she hadn't heard him, an annoying little habit she had. Instead she powered down the ship and rose to her feet, grabbing her twin katanas from where he'd set them on the ground. He was glad to see she also picked up the gun he'd added into the mix. Blades were all good and well, and Buddha knew the girl could certainly use them, but sometimes nothing took the place of a well aimed bullet.

 

He tried again. 'You know good and well ain't nobody survivin' that.'

 

She blinked slow and stared at the broken ship. 'The thread to the king still shines.' Her head cocked to the side. 'She must wind it to see where it goes. Her fate has turned on a dime.'

 

Jayne thumbed off Vera's safety as the pounding from the crew quarters became more insistent. He'd finally had to shut the intercom off to silence Mal's threats and bellyaching; he worried River might get distracted and crash.

 

'What're we doin' 'bout that?' He jerked his head toward the sound.

 

She holstered the gun and slipped a couple of grenades into the front pocket of her dress. 'Wait ten minutes and then let the captain and Zoe out and follow after. Do not allow Simon and Kaylee to leave.'

 

She could see him working through what she'd said and deciphering her intentions. His eyes popped wide. 'Whoa, whoa, whoa...hold up there, Crazy. You might a taken out a roomful of reavers on your lonesome, but there's a hell of a lot more'n a roomful out there. An' I didn't get all fancied up just ta miss the party.'

 

She squinted at him. 'You are worried for the girl.'

 

'No I ain't.' He stuck out his jaw stubbornly. 'I'm worried you get et, there won't be nobody to fly the damn ship of this gorram graveyard. An' you know damn well Mal'll blame me, anything happens to you 'cause I let you go alone.'

 

She felt the thread tugging at her, insistent toward the spark of man-but-not-man thing. 'Will not be fighting alone,' she said softly. 'Jayne, the girl must perform the first pruning – it is her purpose. Only then will the orchard be safe for the crew. I will _need_ you behind me. The only one the girl trusts to guard the rear.'

 

Jayne snorted and crossed his arms. 'Flattery ain't gonna work, _ni zi_.'

 

River could feel the thread slipping; could feel the window closing, and she surged to her feet and lunged at Jayne, coming to a stop only when they were head to chest. 'Jayne!' she pleaded. ' _Please_!'

 

He squinted down at her. She looked desperate; desperate enough to come this close to another person willingly, something she generally avoided. He didn't know what was out there, but she obviously felt a powerful need to get to it. He was not comfortable with the situation; wasn't comfortable with sending her out to face that alone, but he couldn't deny that she was usually right about things like this.

 

He blew out an angry breath and punched the bulkhead. ' _Fuck_!' She stepped back, the grin on her face making it obvious she knew she'd won.

 

'Alright, go. But I'm tellin' Mal you knocked me out 'fore you left, _dong ma_? 'Specially if you get got.'

 

'Agreed.' Without further conversation she turned and ran lightly from the room, weapons in hand. A minute later he heard the hiss of the airlock opening. After the clunk that signaled she'd closed it again, he pushed the button, reactivating the intercom to Mal's room.

 

'Ah, Mal?' He cleared his throat. 'It's Jayne. We...ah...we got a situation.'

 

* * * * * * * * * *

 

River ducked and heard the ax blade whistle as it brushed over her hair. She stepped back, dipped, thrust, twisted; the reaver howled before twitching and dropping to the ground. Two more took its place and she whirled, holding both blades at arms length. Intestines slipped out of bellies and she climbed over their bodies.

 

She still had fifty yards before she even reached the broken and foreign ship. She knew the specs of every vessel ever created, and this one was no known model in the 'verse. She filed that piece of information away for further study as she broke a reaver's nose with her foot, driving the spike embedded there into his brain.

 

Most of the living victims of the Pax were concentrated on the ship; she could see them tossing body parts back and forth; some of them eating, some of them skinning, some of them simply slaking their lusts on the dead. Only the stragglers had noticed her, and they were the lucky ones – they died quick.

 

She drew a grenade from her pocket – thoughtful Jayne – and pulled the pin, lobing it into the crowd. The resulting explosion ripped a hole through the mass, raining her with bits and pieces of flesh that she barely noticed in her stalk toward the opening torn in the ship's hull. More reavers spilled out and she sprinted toward them, swords at the ready.

 

A dark joy ran through her veins, always at odds with her conscious mind. She might not have been born for this, but it was what she had been _made_ for. Her blood sang as she danced through the crowd, spreading a ballet of carnage and guts. Nothing could touch her, nothing could stop her. She was Nirrti, she was Izanami, she was Agrona – she was death and war and blood and dust, and she followed nothing but the pulsing thread that weaved through her victims, marking who would live and who would die.

 

She trusted that Jayne would clean up the dross.

 

Her hair matted around her face from a combination of blood and brain, an inconsequential detail to the performance. She was gliding, she was whirling, she was a pirouetting angel of darkness, and she had to keep moving, moving, moving, because somewhere, somewhere far on the other side of the ship, was her dance partner. As she floated between her victims, she felt the girl fade away, replaced by the monster that wore her face.

 

Simon could never understand this and the crew would never see it; none of them would accept that the monster was always there, always wearing girl skin stretched over bone, always waiting patiently for the second her attention faltered and it could slip loose and run. Only Jayne suspected, not because the monster had once bloodied him, but because he housed a monster too, albeit on a far tighter leash. Having a whole brain enabled him greater control.

 

She was in the middle of the hold now, tasting blood that was not her own. Her dress stuck wetly to her thighs, threatening to trip her, and she spared one brief moment to rip the length in half before jamming one blade through a reaver's eye. Distantly, she heard the clang of steel on steel, and the thread tugged, pulling her further through the storm.

 

_Dip, duck, lunge, swing....thrust left, parry right...punch...kick...gut..._

 

She stepped back to avoid being eviscerated and her boot slipped in a puddle of blood. Before her mind could register the incident, her ankle turned underneath her and her body hit the floor with a painful thud, her head slamming into the metal grating.

 

Stars danced, and in the seconds it took her to regain her breath, two reavers tackled her, pinning her arms to the ground, their hands pinching, their teeth gnashing. Just before a mouth bit into her jugular, two shots rang out and their bodies collapsed, puppets whose strings had been cut. She shoved them to the side and flipped to her feet, taking half a second to salute Jayne's smirk from the torn bulkhead, a hundred feet behind her.

 

Then, she pointed and he immediately ducked, saving his head from being taken from his shoulders by a mallet. She could see Mal's legs as he lowered himself through the ceiling, and, assured Jayne would take care of them, she hurled back into the fray.

 

She lost track of time then, lost count of heads severed, spleens ruptured, sternums crushed. Lost track of everything but the thread that had fractured _Serenity_ ' _s_ loom, altered the pattern, changed the future.

 

She jerked her sword from a reaver mouth and watched as he blinked once, lifted a hand as if to grab her, and then folded to the floor. The noise echoed through the cavernous room, fading to silence, and then there was no sound to replace it but minutia. She heard her heartbeat, the drip of a bead of sweat as it rolled down her arm and hit the grating, and _him_.

 

She met his eyes over the bodies of their joint kills at the same time his thoughts came rushing over her, unlike anything she had ever heard. If she dug, looked deep down, the humanity was there - linear thoughts, whispers of the rational – but they were almost completely subjugated by a feral, biting edge. Intense, animal urges – kill or be killed, eat or be eaten, blood lust, body lust, _hunger_ ; they controlled him with a strength that left her mind reeling. It was no wonder he hadn't felt human; he wasn't.

 

He not only lived with the monster, he courted it.

 

His hunger struck out at her, and the thread they both clung to twisted in on itself before turning and wrapping in quick succession around her body, binding her tight. The air choked in her lungs as she struggled for breath under the weight of something she couldn't quite name, but that left her heart racing and her belly pulsing with a deep ache. In that moment, she felt the future crystallize around her, various possibilities coalescing into one sure thing: he would be hers.

 

'The king stood at the door and knock, knock, knocked, and _Serenity_ let him in.'

 

The words left her mouth in a whisper, but his eyes flashed back to hers and she knew he heard. She could feel Jayne and Zoe and Mal cautiously approaching from the rear, but she couldn't give them any attention, utterly captivated with the man in front of her. She studied him as he, in turn, studied her.

 

Dark muscle, corded and taunt and covered with blood and grime and guts and housing a body that would dwarf her, hide her completely in its shadow. His skin was marked with some tribal design that ran the length of one arm and wrapped past where she could see. Her fingers twitched at the imagined sensation of touch and in response his hands tightened and flexed over the handle of the double headed ax they held.

 

His head was shaved and his face was hard and unforgiving. His eyes - the strongest outward marker of his lack of communion with the human race - glowed silver in the dimness of the room as he returned her stare, unflinching. He was tensed, waiting for something, some kind of reaction she thought, but when she simply blinked, the muscles across his chest relaxed and a look akin to recognition appeared on his face.

 

He knew her, and she knew him, and she desperately wanted to reach out and touch his darkness.

 

Only seconds had passed, but it should have been hours; it was illogical for the whole 'verse to change in mere seconds. Without taking his eyes from hers, he inhaled deeply through his nose. As a child on Osiris, she'd once seen a wolf in a zoo act similarly, sniff and snuffle the air right before he'd covered his mate. He was smelling her, tasting her scent, and the glint in his eyes darkened as a low rumble sounded from his chest.

 

A whimper stuck in her throat and she took a step toward him; reached out a hand and -

 

'Who the ruttin' hell is he?' Jayne's voice broke the spell and her arm dropped back to her side.

 

Jayne was growly inside. He recognized a threat and was sizing it up as per his job, taking in the man's comfort with his weapons, the path of reavers behind him, his shape and his foreign eyes. His finger was resting on his trigger and his nostrils flared and River felt the man tense in return. She understood; it was only natural the two alphas would resist existing in the same space.

 

She put a hand on Jayne's arm. 'The king,' she answered simply and then turned to her captain. 'And he is coming with us.'

 

Mal's eyebrows shot up. 'Did I miss somethin'? Like you somehow becomin' Captain of my ship? Only person who gives orders here is me, _dong ma_?' He pointed a finger at her. 'An' we're gonna be havin' us a chat 'bout you commandeerin' us all for this little rescue mission.'

 

She blinked at him. 'The captain would abandon him here?'

 

Mal shuffled and cleared his throat before regaining his sardonic equilibrium, addressing the stranger instead of River's question. 'Wouldn't be right in any part of the 'verse to leave a man here. I conjure we can take you on, least til we hit the skyplex; you can find further transport there.' He looked over the ruined ship. 'Course, we ain't near as fancy as all this. As a _king_ though -' his disbelief was clear in his voice, ' - I'll just assume you can help pay for your passage.'

 

White teeth gleamed as the dark man sneered and started to speak, but Jayne's voice overrode him.

 

'Mal,' he whinged, 'ain't l'il Crazy freak enough without lettin' another one on?'

 

River didn't take offense - the name was Jayne's version of a term of affection – but she narrowed her eyes and looked him up and down. He crossed his arms and growled. 'What?'

 

'The girl is considering the best place to pour the syrup.'

 

Jayne threw back his head and belly laughed, and River was assaulted with a sharp spike of possessive rage from the darkness beside her. The animal part already recognized her as his, although his mind had not yet caught up to the fact. She frowned – he would have to be made to understand Jayne was no threat to that. But first, they must get off the planet.

 

Zoe obviously agreed and cleared her throat, reminding River of her silent presence at Mal's side. 'I hate to break this party up, but we might wanna get moving before the rest of the population finds us.'

 

Mal nodded, but didn't shift, instead turning his attention back to their new passenger. 'He may not be the sharpest tool in the box, but Jayne has a point. Need to know who exactly I'm bringin' on my boat. You got a few peculiarities I'm a bit curious on.'

 

The man spoke for the first time, his voice a deep bass that went to the marrow of River's bones, marking her as surely as any scars she had left from her time at the Academy.

 

'It's Riddick,' he said shortly, and left it at that. He didn't hold out his hand, and Mal didn't offer his.

 

'Well, King Riddick - '

 

'Lord Marshall,' The man corrected with a smirk.

 

'An' I'm sure that's a fascinatin' story. You can fill us all in back on ship.' Mal's voice made it clear it was not a request. 'I'm Malcolm Reynolds, captain of _Serenity_. The reason you're alive is River Tam, who is in all sorts of trouble. You understand that 'tross?' He didn't wait for an answer before continuing. 'This here is Zoe Washburne, First Mate, and the ugly one is Jayne Cobb, my merc - '

 

The word was still on Mal's tongue when Riddick lunged, a homemade blade appearing in his hand from no-one-saw-where. In one-third of a second it was at Jayne's throat. As quick as he was, Jayne was just as fast, the muzzle of his LeMat pressing against Riddick's forehead. Taking their cue from Jayne, Mal and Zoe moved their guns to train on Riddick as he snarled.

 

'I don't ride with mercs.'

 

Jayne sneered back, 'An' I don't ship out with assholes. But since I'm 'bout ta put a bullet through yer brainpan, guess I don't gotta worry on that, do I?'

 

'And you'll look better...what? Six inches shorter?' Riddick increased the pressure on the point of the knife.

 

River moved quickly, stepping between the two men. She wrapped one hand around Jayne's arm and tugged, while simultaneously pushing a finger against the blade at his throat, careful not to touch Riddick – the time was not ripe for that. The knife had been honed razor sharp and she felt it nick into her flesh.

 

'Miscommunication. Differentials in word application; definitions are variable.' Both men just stared at her, and Mal and Zoe's arms didn't waver. She tried again.

 

'Not a bounty hunter. Not here. A gun for hire. Not like _him_.'

 

Mal, at least, seemed to understand her, because he suddenly started laughing. 'A bounty hunter? Jayne? Definitely jumpin' on the wrong freighter there, son. Jayne's the bounty, not the other way 'round.'

 

Riddick's eyes narrowed as he looked between River, Jayne and Mal. 'I'm not your son.'

 

River's growl was aggravated. The future had arrived, but they needed to _go._ She pushed harder against the knife, a drop of her blood sliding down the blade as it cut further into her finger. 'Time to be wise. Explanations must wait for safety. Our ship carries crime, not badges.'

 

Still, no one moved, and in the end she pinched Jayne's arm, hard.

 

'Sonuvabitch!' He jerked back in reflex, glaring at her, and Riddick finally withdrew, balancing the knife in one hand, the ax still in the other. Everyone let out a breath and the tension in the air abated

 

Zoe holstered her gun. 'If we're done with the penis comparisons, Sir, I recommend we move.' Jayne curled his lip up at her, but she returned his look stoically.

 

'Right.' Mal looked hard at Riddick. 'Soon as we're off this rock, you report to the mess. I got me a ton of curiosity on why royalty is so skittish about the law.'

 

Zoe and Mal turned to go, but their new passenger didn't follow.

 

River comprehended, even if she didn't exactly understand. 'He must retrieve the girl.'

 

Mal jerked around. 'What girl? 'Tross, I agreed to one passenger, not two.'

 

Riddick lifted his shiv to his mouth, his tongue running up the blade to clean River's blood from it. He shoved the knife into a sheath on his belt and rested the ax across his shoulders before drawling his answer.

 

'Don't worry. I promise she doesn't eat much.'

 

* * * * * * *

 

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [CoverArt for Spiral!Verse by GoddessofBirth](https://archiveofourown.org/works/518966) by [SusanMarieR](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SusanMarieR/pseuds/SusanMarieR)




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